anonymous6059 wrote: You don't see giant tombstones for every single developer so why is it so important for all the backers to get one? A video game is a work of art. Backer markers sprayed throughout the game feels like graffiti or vandalism.

anonymous6059 wrote: You don't see giant tombstones for every single developer so why is it so important for all the backers to get one? A video game is a work of art. Backer markers sprayed throughout the game feels like graffiti or vandalism.

Wow, you nailed it. That is a top-notch analogy.

Because they sold it and people paid for it. inXile included tombs in their reward tiers and most backers who pledged more than $125 are entitled to them, it is literally part of what they paid for. I can understand an argument to not include them in future crowdfunding campaigns, or moving that kind of reward to a more expensive tier, but to not include it in Tides of Numenera or to just half arse it would be inXile choosing to break promises made to a fair number of backers, ones who contributed substantial money to the project.

anonymous6059 wrote: You don't see giant tombstones for every single developer so why is it so important for all the backers to get one? A video game is a work of art. Backer markers sprayed throughout the game feels like graffiti or vandalism.

Wow, you nailed it. That is a top-notch analogy.

Because they sold it and people paid for it. inXile included tombs in their reward tiers and most backers who pledged more than $125 are entitled to them, it is literally part of what they paid for. I can understand an argument to not include them in future crowdfunding campaigns, or moving that kind of reward to a more expensive tier, but to not include it in Tides of Numenera or to just half arse it would be inXile choosing to break promises made to a fair number of backers, ones who contributed substantial money to the project.

Well that is what I was getting at basically. I wasn't saying that they shouldn't give people what they payed for. I just don't think that its a good idea to have such petty ego boosting displays in video games. A nod in the credits is good enough. spraying the content all over the game is just annoying. It really makes me not want to read anything after a while, which is what happened in Pillars of Eternity for me. Having everything in one location really solves a lot of the problems and I think they've made the best choice on what to do.

Yeah, I think that in Pillars they could have done a much better job just by:
- Filtering the list and categorising them by how well they fit into the world/theme
- Flagging low quality memorials and NPCs and done a little work with backers to improve them
- Used the categories to try to ensure memorials that fit near each other go together and sillier ones go in sillier game spaces

As it stands Pillar's approach to backer content was to spray it almost mindlessly and train players that it was uninformative, ill fitting and best to completely ignore it. Heck when one memorial was changed they didn't even have a way to control where the new one was placed. I don't think anyone who backed at a memorial level or higher and cared about them really got what they ordered. Which is especially sad when you see the ones memorialising a dead loved one.

At least from the description here inXile have a random method of exploring the memorials, so any backer's memorials have a chance of being seen. I doubt anyone who wasn't looking for their own memorial was still checking past maybe the second instance of them in Pillars of Eternity.

Ranneko wrote:Yeah, I think that in Pillars they could have done a much better job just by:
- Filtering the list and categorising them by how well they fit into the world/theme
- Flagging low quality memorials and NPCs and done a little work with backers to improve them
- Used the categories to try to ensure memorials that fit near each other go together and sillier ones go in sillier game spaces

As it stands Pillar's approach to backer content was to spray it almost mindlessly and train players that it was uninformative, ill fitting and best to completely ignore it. Heck when one memorial was changed they didn't even have a way to control where the new one was placed. I don't think anyone who backed at a memorial level or higher and cared about them really got what they ordered. Which is especially sad when you see the ones memorialising a dead loved one.

At least from the description here inXile have a random method of exploring the memorials, so any backer's memorials have a chance of being seen. I doubt anyone who wasn't looking for their own memorial was still checking past maybe the second instance of them in Pillars of Eternity.

Good point. I'd never really noticed any memorials for the dead, at least not that I can think of now, but then again I started avoiding them like the plague early on. It was really disappointing and has tainted my impression of backer memorials ever since.

I do have one idea though for how Inxile could really get players to explore the Necropolis. All that they'd need to do is have a strong artifact dropped randomly in one of the memorials (most likely the highest backer's rooms of course). You'd only discover the item drop after having read the memorial in the room. This would cause players to hunt for the item and give them incentive to read the memorials. Since the rooms themselves have randomized decor, I don't think it would be an impossible feat to have them very rarely drop items as well. It would be necessary for the item to always drop randomly, that is the important part of this idea. The whole point would be quickly defeated if it always dropped in the same memorial. Making it randomized to some extent would make it a fun gamble. Something to try to get if you happened to just be bored or actually wanted to read the memorials for their own sake.